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Penske's Will Power is too much for Long Beach IndyCar field

Will Power's win at Long Beach on Sunday pushed him into the Izod IndyCar Series points lead. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

It's Team Penske again in the Izod IndyCar Series. And Will Power. And Chevrolet.

The Bowtie Boy became the new series points leader with a fuel-saving drive that staved off the spirited charge of Honda's Simon Pagenaud, who cut about a second a lap over the final 15 laps as he pitted for fuel. Power was in conservation mode, but he made it the final 31 laps on what was in his tank.

Chevrolet was penalized 10 starting positions for each of its 11 teams because they all changed engines without approval following a failure in James Hinchcliffe's car last week during a test at Infineon Raceway. But it still landed the win and six of the top seven finishing positions.

Things might have been even sweeter for Chevrolet if Ryan Hunter-Reay and Helio Castroneves hadn't been penalized 30 seconds each at the race's conclusion for avoidable contact with others.

Power won for the 17th time in his career and the second time in as many races. He won the race at Barber Motorsports Park on April 1. His margin of victory at Long Beach was 0.8675 second.

Josef Newgarden, last year's Firestone Indy Lights champion and an IndyCar rookie this season, started on the front row because of the Chevrolet penalties, but he didn't stay there long.

Newgarden made a bid to overtake Dario Franchitti on the outside in turn one, but he couldn't make it stick. The back end of his car stepped out--arguably with right front wing contact from Franchitti--and hit the tire barrier.

“I thought I had a good run on him,” Newgarden said, declining to complain about Barfield's decision.

Marco Andretti was looking for a penalty on Graham Rahal after he thought Rahal moved slightly to the right, but no penalty came.

“That was a chop,” Andretti said. “I took the bigger penalty.”

Rahal said Andretti was going so fast that he wasn't going to make the corner anyway.

Will Phillips, IndyCar's vice president of technology, declined to comment on Andretti's airborne ride and the rear wheel guards designed to prevent such tire-to-tire contact, pending a review of the accident data.

Among other happenings: Pagenaud hit a tire laid out on pit road for Power, but he was not penalized because he was avoiding a car on his left; Dixon's car stalled on the track during the caution; E. J. Viso got slapped with a drive-through penalty for running into Alex Tagliani, an incident that television did not capture; Simona De Silvestro became the first driver this season to be penalized for blocking. She received a drive-through penalty.